Author Archives: hipacificreview

About hipacificreview

Hawaii Pacific Review is an online literary journal based at Hawaii Pacific University.

by hipacificreview | 07/31/2014 · 10:27 am

Reason for Return

by Rita Ciresi

After Christmas, I unwrapped his presents. The paper pictured a child in the manger, angels blowing trumpets, and a cornucopia that spilled out in cursive script Blessings Blessings Blessings.

I’m known in our house as the thrifty one. I reuse giftwrap from year to year. Collect soap slivers. Turn lotion and shampoo bottles upside down to coax out the last drop. But that day I ripped the angels off each box. Crumpled the Blessings. Left the child in the manger in shreds. Continue reading →

Quang Ngai, 1968

by Robert Karaszi

In this geometry of a dream
I’m back where the sun,
a monstrous orb
pours savage light
through rockweed.

Starlings like gray halos
circle then arrow
into mangroves. Continue reading →

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Filed under Poetry

Tagged as Robert Karaszi

by hipacificreview | 07/16/2014 · 3:54 pm

Something L.A.

by R. Dean Johnson

Tom doesn’t know I’ve been avoiding him. It hasn’t exactly been a conscious thing. There wasn’t an argument or a last straw; I’ve had no epiphany or change of heart. It just sort of happened.

Really, we’ve always been semester friends—hanging out when classes are in session, rarely doing much together on spring, winter, or summer breaks. But now we’ve graduated, both with business degrees from a school that has a great reputation for engineering. There were a couple graduation get-togethers, high fives and handshakes, bottles of beer and the occasional shot, the grin and requisite, “We did it.” Then, nothing. A perpetual break. Continue reading →

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Filed under Nonfiction

Tagged as R Dean Johnson

by hipacificreview | 07/08/2014 · 2:42 am

Grace Kelly at the Flemings Hotel

by Susana H. Case

Black and white photographs line the
corridors: here, a roadster, with a glamorous
woman checking her face in the rear view;
another inhales a candelabra of eight cigarettes.
Who are these people?
Continue reading →

Sneakers

by Jessica Barksdale

“Anna,” Sig said over the loudspeaker. “I need you in the deli with a gun.”

As Anna ripped open a box of mustard in the condiment section of aisle 6, she wondered what that sentence might sound like to an ordinary MaxRight shopper. What, someone might think, is going on behind the deli counter? What awful thing is happening next to the salami and Swiss cheese? Could it be that the store manager and the stock girl were interrogating the prosciutto delivery guy with a Glock? Continue reading →